Freaking out

The other night, my wife cooked broccoli. You heard me, broccoli. I don’t like broccoli. I told her that I do not like broccoli. She asked if I had ever tried broccoli. I said that wasn’t important. I told her that it smelled like feet. She said it’s not so bad if you put a little cheese on it. I said, “Mmmmmmm. Smelly feet with cheese.”

Who do I blame this recent unpleasant dietary development on? Some trouble-making rabble-rousers on television, that’s who. Not long ago, we watched a television news story telling about the horrors of eating sugar. How dare they! I made the mistake of watching it. Worse yet, I made the mistake of watching it with my wife — the purchaser of things I get to eat.

I didn’t catch all of what they were saying because I tend to not listen to stuff that I don’t want to hear. I did get the general gist of the piece had something to do with sugar not being good for your general well-being. There were “doctors” and “scientists” that were interviewed. They showed diagrams of clogged arteries and used terms like “toxic” and possibly “icky.” Like I said, I wasn’t listening very closely.

Shows like this tend to pray on weak-minded people who, for some reason or other, want to improve themselves. They say that if you diet and exercise, you’ll feel younger and have an overall better quality of life. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All I know is that the woman who buys my Twinkies and Ho-Hos is extremely susceptible to this kind of brainwashing.

Haven’t any of these so-called scientists and doctors seen Willy Wonka? It’s a delightful tale of impressionable young children being led around a sugary heaven by a creepy guy in a top hat. On second thought, forget that example. Oompah Loompahs freak me out.

As a little kid back in the 1970s, when ironically, I was possibly at the healthiest point of my life, I used to eat a brand of breakfast cereal called “Freakies.” The reason I started eating it was because they gave away these cool refrigerator magnets as a prize in every box. The magnets were in the shape of these seven little “Freakie” creatures. I had the whole collection. I got really good at whipping them across the kitchen and making them stick to different appliances. Mom’s freezer still has the scratches to prove it.

I admit that it was the magnets that drew me to this cereal brand, but it was the flavor that made me a fan. It was the most delicious-tasting cereal a 6-year-old kid could ever imagine. I can only describe it as “Captain Crunch” with extra sugar. According to Wikipedia, “Freakies” was only on the grocery shelves from 1972 through 1976 when undoubtedly, “60 Minutes” ran an exposé on this fine, pre-sweetened company.

Those sugar-coated times seem so long, long ago.

As I was loudly pish-poshing all of this “sugar is bad” nonsense and claiming that all of these “people of science” were dirty, dirty liars, I happened to look over at my wife. She sat there, wide-eyed soaking in all of this left-wing, health nut propaganda. If these people were running a cult, she was drinking the Kool-Aid. The only problem, it was sugar free. I was starting to shake with fear, feeling an inkling of what was about to happen to our family’s food supply. Or than again, maybe it was just my high blood pressure talking.

Evidently, we are now on a little health kick. It has happened before and these periods usually don’t last long, but she has a different look in her eye this time. In past years, I have barely survived a few bouts with the Atkin’s Diet and even a couple of very long, bread-free weeks. Luckily, they were not consecutive.

She has now gotten out all of her diet and nutrition books and constantly espouses to me about the virtues of eating healthier. She reads food labels. To me. Out loud. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This time around, she is even talking about exercising. You heard me, exercising! She wants to take walks. Outside. Over measurable distances. At a “brisk” pace. With me! Oh, the horror!

Now that my wife has “seen the light,” I’m sure that my diet will change whether I want it to or not. In fact, I think that I smell that darn broccoli again! Oh wait, never mind. It’s just my shoes. Did I step in some cheese?

You can contact Wallace at gregwallaceink7@gmail.com. You can follow him on his blog at http://gregwallaceink.blogspot.com.